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Monday, February 25

Some very big man is gonna get poison ivy

At first it looked like another weekend in the shitter. The ride possibilities were dwindling as the rain continued to fall Saturday morning. If I hadn't cleaned and organized my bike room last week, I woulda got done it this past weekend...

and I woulda wrote about that today, because according to The Hawley Blog, that's what everybody wants to read.

"Try making it through another interminable post about Dicky’s bike room
arrangement techniques without slamming your head repeatedly into your
keyboard wishing for the sweet embrace of “head-trauma induced
unconsciousness.”

But I did manage to make it outside... over to my mom's house to reorganize her closet...

and somehow I squeaked in not one, but two rides after that.

But later in the afternoon on Sunday, I got a text that trumped all my on-trail glory ten fold.

Twin Six's Brent sent me that text. His second message (edited) indicated a certain level of post-NAHBS inebriation. I took the text as a joke and went ahead and offered up my residence... as a joke.
But then I saw this:

REEB Cycles confirmed the intelligence, though being that they are still huge fans of the Gates Belt Drive System, I've doubted their intelligence for some time.

Then Eric "PMBAR Honcho" Wever confirmed the information because "I know a guy who knows a guy who designed a website for a guy..."

Well that's some fucking news right there, so I decided to share it with the class.

Spiders and crickets... although the only thing I heard after I posted this was the crickets. Perhaps it's because I cried wolf a few too many times lately. I felt like my friends in Charlotte and surrounding areas needed to know that the wolf was indeed coming.

This time, I got a little more reaction.

It is true, the North American Handmade Bicycle Show will be coming to Charlotte in 2014. I am not as excited to see the bikes as I am to see the people that are coming to town. Let's face it. My only hope is that the fat bike will not be as embraced next year as it was this past weekend, and everybody will get back to building rigid single speed 29'ers for the show.

I can't wait to see Curtis Inglis and give him the same treatment as he gave me at the Single Speed Worlds in Napa. He put a bounty on my head for anybody that was willing to throw me into the poison oak. That said, it sounds like Curtis needs a trip to the Back Yard Trails where ivy is most abundant and flourishing... even in February.

BTW: Curtis won the Best Mountain Bike award by building not a fat bike, but a thick bike.

The amazing part is that Curtis was homeless just six months ago.

He was taken in by a group of Hare Krishnas, cleaned up, and remotivated to start building custom frames with superfluous bicycle tubing once again.

I am sure that there will be requests for floor space from friends near and far. I've already asked The Pie to make herself scarce that weekend... perhaps even the following Monday so I can make the necessary reparations. It's gonna be a hellaciously good time, an event that will hopefully eclipse the over-hyped DNC convention in scope, magnitude, and quality of protests.

I have what is the best new theme/category for the 2014 NAHBS already in mind. Builders should do their best to build what I would consider my dream bike (here's a clue: NOT A FAT BIKE). I will be the judge and the winner gets to give me the bike of my dreams, and in return they will receive a very tall, meaningful trophy and a ride on my handlebars out the front door of the Charlotte Convention Center.

Agreed?

Let's do this thing.

Irregardless of what could be said against said show, my shared angst over certain aspects of how the show is run, and the fact that the Richmond show seen through the haze of a terrible hangover was a bit of a "meh," I will go because it will be 4.75 miles from my house. Proximity is key. Had it been 15 or more miles, a distance I would not want to ride "under the influence," it might be a different story.